A believer in community and adventure, Ashley Thompson is married to a brilliant architect and a mother to two delightful children. She would not separate her personal and professional live, she would rather combine everything and enhance the community we live in while raising children that believe that they are not only capable of - but compelled to change the world. Ashley is the Director of Development for EmBe and is passionate about empowering women and families in our community.

"The problem was they had already had failures previous to this, and they kept launching when they shouldn't have."

In The Space Shuttle Challenger - What Went Wrong?! from Sioux Falls Vol. 14, former Nasa technician John Kolander talks about the tragic Challenger disaster that occurred January 28th, 1986 and his perspective while working from the Launch Control Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base. In this stoic presentation, Kolander recollects that heavy moment, systematically breaking down in simple terms the chain of events that when wrong.

Revisit the tragedy that broke our hearts but not our spirits, and reflect on the those that gave their lives in our ongoing reach for the stars and beyond.

Revist the tragedy that broke our hearts but not our spirits, and reflect on the those that gave their lives in our ongoing reach for the stars.

Married 40 years to his wife Barbara, John and his family have lived in Sioux Falls for almost ten years and this is now home.

Allyson Bousema is a graphic designer living in the heart of Sioux Falls. She enjoys trying to make it to every art show on First Fridays and loves connecting with the creative and brilliant people who support this city like she does. She made a lot of artist connections at her last job and misses working with them. It's because of those connections, that she decided to start her own large format print shop, Prints & Repeat.

She wants to share her story and the path that led her to where she is now. She dreams of inspiring at least one other person to invest in their passions as well. There is something in her brain that wasn't there before. The confidence that she has earned now motivates her everyday to do things even when she thinks she can't. She's Allyson Bousema, and she is here to help.

Klaire Pearson is a painter who lives in Vermillion, SD, and she creates representational portraits of women with oil on canvas. Klaire enjoys using the human form as a vehicle to communicate the agency of her subjects with viewers. In addition to addressing femininity and feminism within her artwork, she enjoys incorporating humor. After she graduated from South Dakota State University, she was a K-12 art teacher. Klaire is currently a graduate student at the University of South Dakota where she studies painting and teaches foundation classes.

John Boylan is an illustrator and graphic designer at Fresh Produce. He is a lifelong comic book enthusiast and has been a collector for most of his life. John finds great pleasure in researching, hunting and cataloging his findings. His collection and catalog of all things Swamp Thing is recognized as a valuable reference tool. Over the past year, Swamp Thing fans from around the world have reached out to John regarding his online catalog at RootsOfTheSwampThing.com

Boylan’s entire collection of over 800 items—books, memorabilia, toys, and more—will be on display from 1:00PM to 5:00PM at the Sioux Falls Design Center in Downtown Sioux Falls. The collection will be authenticated by legendary comic book artist and creator Phil Hester (Marvel, DC, and more), local purveyor of all things collectible John Nordstrom (Rainbow Sports Cards and Comics) and Sioux Falls business owner and comic enthusiast Andy Howes (Howes Oil, Local Zip). Boylan promises the event will be “a celebration of fandom, fanaticism, and all things Swampy.”

Sara Lum grew up in South Dakota and has had the opportunity to study and work in diverse contexts in the U.S. And Europe. After receiving her Master of Architecture degree from the Rice School of Architecture in 2012, she completed a design fellowship at Emerging Terrain in Omaha, Nebraska. She is currently an instructor in the Department of Architecture at South Dakota State University where she has developed and taught multiple courses in addition to planning the annual Department of Architecture lecture series.

Sara is interested in developing research in how innovative research methods and tools, such as 3D laser scanning, contribute to creative solutions to design challenges. She recently co-founded FLAT (Future Landscapes + Architecture Terrains) which is an online platform connecting professionals, researchers, educators, and students who are invested in exploring architecture-based design and research in the upper Great Plains.

Maureen Ohm is a mother who donated nearly 1,000 ounces of breast milk after her first child was stillborn. Her second child is now two months old, and Maureen intends to donate breast milk again once she has enough milk stored for her own child. She is passionate about the benefits of breast milk and is excited to spread awareness about breast milk donation. She has donated breast milk through milk banks and through informal sharing, and she will share her own story as well as stories of other mothers and babies who have donated and received this precious commodity.

Julie Anderson Friesen is the founder of Cinema Falls, a film organization dedicated to building community and exhibiting indie film, world cinema and documentaries in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. She's a co-owner of post-production facility Dakota Video & Post with her husband of 24 years. Motivated to create something for her community based on her love of film, she launched Cinema Falls with a mission to bring film-loving “Cine-zens” together for ongoing screenings. Cinema Falls showcases work by South Dakota filmmakers as well as national, award-winning directors. She launched Cinema Falls Film Credits in 2014, bringing mobile film education events to students

Raised on a healthy diet of cartoons and comic books, Marc Wagner’s playful drawings are deceivingly innocent. These bright colors tend to tell some dark stories. Marc’s current work addresses the subconscious mind, sometimes his own, by working quickly and watching to see what happens. He also addresses our culture’s bombardment of images, and the popular characters that have become cultural icons. Most of Marc’s images are marker & pen, but he will occasionally use his printmaking background for different imagery.

Marc attended South Dakota State University, where he received a degree in Graphic Design. During his time at SDSU, he also pursued his interests in studio arts. Particularly, drawing and printmaking. After graduating in 2013, he moved to back to Sioux Falls with his wife and their dogs. In addition to his job at Dakota Lettering, Marc stays busy freelancing as an illustrator.

Bryan Kegley has been making a living pouring water over coffee grounds and helping others to pour water over coffee grounds. His journey in the world of coffee has been an uphill climb of coffee consumption in a lot of weird ways and for probably stranger reasons.

Amy Gehling is a farm kid from southeast MN who received her BFA in graphic design from USD. She has a somewhat unhealthy fascination with the future of art, mentorship, and education. She is currently working as a creative director at FLUXXR, a co-founder of Women in Tech Sioux Falls, and is here to tell you about her most recent endeavor, ByHuman.

Heidi Hogden received a BFA in painting from Minneapolis College of Art and Design and a MFA in studio art from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in affiliation with Tufts University. While a MFA student, she was the recipient of a Graduate and Post Graduate Teaching Fellowship, the Montague International Travel Grant to study abroad in Italy, and the President's Award in Painting. Heidi has also had the opportunity to present and show her work in four solo exhibitions and recently was awarded a grant to attend the Vermont Studio Center Artist Residency in Johnson, VT. Her work can be seen in the upcoming South Dakota Governor’s 6th Biennial Art Exhibition at the South Dakota Art Museum, Brookings, the Dahl Arts Center, Rapids City, the Washington Pavilion of Arts And Science, Sioux Falls, the John A. Day Gallery, Vermillion and the Dacotah Prairie Museum, Aberdeen, SD.